Boeing 787 Dreamliner: a passenger and airline favourite, with some nightmares along the way

Independent

16 hours ago

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the first truly 21st-century big jet. More than 1,000 are in service, and many passengers rate it more highly than other aircraft.
The carbon-fibre twin-engined 787 was designed partly as a replacement for Boeing's veteran 767 – but also to introduce passenger-friendly benefits such as larger windows and higher cabin pressure.
The Dreamliner was also accountant friendly, burning about one-fifth less fuel than the 767, and allowed airlines' network planners to dream of ultra-long routes. The daily Qantas nonstop between London Heathrow and Perth in Western Australia, covering over 9,000 miles, is a doddle for a suitably configured 787.
Boeing's bet was that an efficient aircraft with plenty of range would enable plenty of previously unserved city pairs to be flown profitably. The wager at arch-rival Airbus was different: think big. Going one step beyond the 747 Jumbo jet by extending the double deck for the length of the aircraft. The European engineers came up with world's largest people-mover: the Airbus A380 'SuperJumbo'.
Both the 787 and A380 endured long and troubled gestations, but the Airbus plane was first in service – beating the 787 by a couple of years. To the chagrin of the Toulouse-based planemaker, few airlines were impressed. It was a 20th-century concept, with four thirsty engines to nourish and maintain. Only Emirates has ordered the Airbus A380 at scale, to feed its mega-hub in Dubai.
In contrast the 787 has been a plane for all seasons. Europe's biggest holiday company, Tui, has 13 of the jets. They can shuttle hundreds of holidaymakers efficiently between the UK and the Mediterranean in summer, then in winter show off their long legs to the Caribbean and South East Asia.
Premier league airlines configure the Dreamliner for comfort: British Airways has a total of 42 in service and on order, while Virgin Atlantic has 17 – with names like Dream Girl and Dream Jeannie. But the choice of engines that both the UK carriers chose have proved something of a nightmare. The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine, 'optimised specifically to power the Boeing 787 Dreamliner family' has been unkindly described by aircraft engineers as having 'chocolate fan blades'.
A shortage of serviceable aircraft caused both BA and Virgin to cancel routes to Kuala Lumpur and Accra respectively.
Yet at least the 787 is now flying at scale. For three months in 2013, the young plane was grounded worldwide because of fears of conflagration involving the lithium batteries that were installed: a newly arrived Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner from Addis Ababa burst into flames at Heathrow. No one was hurt, but the plane was banned from flying until Boeing came up with a fix.
More recently, safety shortcomings at the US manufacturer have come under the spotlight. And the first fatal crash of the 787 on Thursday 12 June, killing hundreds in Ahmedabad, will sharply increase the focus on the plane's airworthiness.
Investigators sifting through the wreckage of the Air India jet will pore over the components that are still intact after the impact and subsequent fire to see if some kind of systems failure had contributed to the disaster. Were a previously unidentified design flaw to be identified, resulting in another worldwide grounding order, global aviation would be traumatised: already the number of active long-haul aircraft are struggling to meet demand, and removing more than 1,000 wide-bodied planes would wreck millions of travel plans.
Meanwhile, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is approaching middle age on the aircraft spectrum – and the younger Airbus A350 has stolen its most-preferred title.
Between London and Doha, Qatar Airways consigns its first-edition 787s to the Gatwick budget route, rather that the pricier premium Heathrow link. These tired-looking high-density aircraft are also deployed on low-revenue routes such as Doha-Kathmandu. My experience from Gatwick via the Gulf hub to the Nepali capital on back-to-back 787s last October was uncomfortable and joyless.
Yet Gulf rival Emirates will soon welcome dozens of Dreamliners into its fleet for the first time. British travellers are likely to be flying on the 787 for a couple of decades yet. But after the tragedy in Ahmedabad, passengers' appreciation of the Dreamliner may diminish.